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ISLAMABAD: Beleaguered Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has "made up his mind to call it a day" and he may do so in the very near future, a newspaper reported on Thursday. Although the president's official spokesman denied this, Musharraf "has no option left but to quit", the News said, quoting highly placed sources. Musharraf "has made up his mind to call it a day and he can make an announcement in this regard any time. His closest aides are of the view that after losing all hope of survival in power, the president has made up his mind to lead...

Pakistani lawyers beat up former Musharraf minister 1 hour, 16 minutes ago A crowd including Pakistani lawyers beat up a former government minister and ally of President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday, prompting a top pro-democracy lawyer to quit his post. Dozens of attorneys surrounded ex-parliamentary affairs minister Sher Afgan Niazi in the eastern city of Lahore, television channels showed, highlighting tensions since Musharraf's allies were trounced in elections in February. Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association and leading supporter of ousted chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, said he was quitting after the incident. "I have decided...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's state-run news agency is quoting a senior Islamabad administrator as saying that all judges detained under the government of President Pervez Musharraf are free. His announcement came after newly elected Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told parliament he wanted the judges released immediately. The report quotes deputy Islamabad commissioner Amir Ahmed Ali as saying "the order of the prime minister has been implemented and all deposed judges are free to move." President Pervez Musharraf fired 60 judges in November under a state of emergency.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's elections were supposed to usher in democracy after eight years of military rule, but for Talat Hussain life doesn't look much different. Every time his TV station tries to air shows critical of President Pervez Musharraf, the screen goes black. Pakistan's main opposition parties announced they would form a coalition government to bring civilian rule after voters delivered a crushing blow to the pro-Musharraf ruling party in Feb. 18 parliamentary polls. Two days after the vote, Aaj, the privately owned station where Hussain is news director, was knocked off the air. Its signal has been jammed...

WASHINGTON - Three senators who met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after opposition parties won a governing majority last week urged a "graceful exit" from power for the close Bush terror-fighting ally. "Were I their political adviser, that's what I would advise," Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday. He did not favor an attempt by that new coalition to impeach Musharraf; the parties have enough seats to govern, but not enough to impeach the president. "I firmly believe if they do not focus on old grudges — and there's plenty in Pakistan — and...

Confounding all predictions, the Pakistani people have clearly demonstrated that they want to choose their own rulers and decide their own future. There is a consensus from Lahore to Karachi It has not been a good year for Pakistan. President Musharraf's sacking of the chief justice last spring, the lawyers' protests that rumbled on throughout the summer and the bloody storming of the Red Mosque in June, followed by a wave of hideous suicide bombings, all gave the impression of a country stumbling from bloody crisis to bloody crisis. By the autumn it had grown even worse. The military defeats...

Leaders of the newly-elected parliament in Pakistan will demand that Pervez Musharraf resign from the presidency. They have rejected a plea from the US to keep Musharraf in place, and they plan to reinstate the judges Musharraf purged in order to have a means to push him out of office if he does not go willingly: The Bush administration is pressing the opposition leaders who defeated Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to allow the former general to retain his position, a move that Western diplomats and U.S. officials say could trigger the very turmoil the United States seeks to avoid. U.S....

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Fed up with violence and economic hardship, voters in the deeply conservative northwest have thrown out the Islamist parties that ruled this province for five years — a clear sign that Pakistanis are rejecting religious extremism in a region where al-Qaida and the Taliban have sought refuge. Instead, voters in turbulent North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, gave their support to secular parties that promised to pave the streets, create jobs and bring peace through dialogue and economic incentives to the extremists. That may conflict with U.S. pressure to step up the fight against armed militants...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's president will not step down as head of state and intends to serve out his five-year term, his spokesman said, despite a sweeping victory by his opponents in an election that President Bush on Wednesday judged to be fair. But with the vote count nearly complete, two opposition parties have won enough seats to form a new government, though they will likely fall short of the two-thirds needed to impeach the president. The result is seen as a major political setback for Musharraf, a key ally of Washington in fighting Taliban and al-Qaida, whose popularity has...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - President Pervez Musharraf will not step down as head of state and intends to serve out his five-year-term, his spokesman says, despite a sweeping election victory by his opponents—some of whom want to drive him from power. Final results from this week's parliamentary poll were expected Wednesday, but with the count nearly complete, two opposition parties had won enough seats to form a new government, though they will likely fall short of the two-thirds needed to impeach the president. Musharraf's spokesman Rashid Qureshi said Tuesday the president intends to work with the new government and will...

Despite suffering a landslide loss in parliamentary elections, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has no intention to resign from office. After the successful and fair elections produced a lopsided coalition between Benazir Bhutto's PPP and Nawaz Sharif's PML-N, Sharif called for Musharraf to leave office. Sharif could make it impossible for Musharraf to stay: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he intends to remain in office and work with the new government, despite the trouncing that the country's parliamentary elections handed his ruling party and calls by the opposition to step down. In an interview posted on the Wall Street Journal's Web...

Pakistan has successfully held elections for the National Assembly and provincial governments, and President Pervez Musharraf and the pro-Taliban Muttahida Majlis-e-Amil, or MMA, have encountered major setbacks. Musharraf has lost his governing coalition, while the MMA lost most of its seats in the National Assembly as well as control of the Northwest Frontier Province. The Pakistan People's Party has won the majority of seats and will form the government, while the Pakistani Muslim League - Nawaz finished a close second. The Awami National Party also won a surprising victory. Election Results Election results are available for 240 of the 272...

The Pakistanis have rejected both Pervez Musharraf and the Islamists in their national and provincial elections yesterday, preliminary results show. Supporters of slain national leader Benazir Bhutto and returned exile Nawaz Sharif will dominate the national and provincial assemblies, and Musharraf will have to deal with a hostile but moderate Parliament: After being sidelined for more than eight years by army intervention, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) seemed headed for a shock comeback as initial partial results of Monday’s elections put a question mark over President Pervez Musharraf’s political future. The previously ruling Pakistan Muslim...

As Pakistanis went to the polls Monday to vote for a new parliament, early indications showed the party of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the lead, with that of President Pervez Musharraf trailing behind, FOX News has learned. Voter turnout was light to moderate, with fears of militant attacks and rigging keeping many Pakistanis at home. The elections were held Monday after a six-week delay in the vote, seen as a key step toward democracy after eight years of military rule under Musharraf, whose political survival hung in the balance.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States. Almost all the leading figures in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that has governed for the last five years under Mr. Musharraf, lost their seats, including the leader of the party, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussein, the former speaker of parliament, Chaudhry Amir Hussein, and six ministers. Though official results would not be announced until Tuesday, early returns indicated that...

The party of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto remained in the lead Monday and that of President Pervez Musharraf trailed behind in third place as vote-counting continued at the close of polls in Pakistan — a stunning development with major implications for the war on terror in the United States and abroad. Early indications showed Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party in a strong first place in the parliamentary elections, followed by opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q was trailing in third. Two opinion polls had predicted those results going into Monday's...

** EXCERPT ** ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said Friday it would try to remove President Pervez Musharraf if it wins next week's parliamentary elections. Although Musharraf is not up for re-election, he could face impeachment if the opposition wins a commanding majority in the legislature. "The ouster of Musharraf will put Pakistan back on the track of real democracy," Babar Awan, a member of the central executive council of the Pakistan People's Party, told The Associated Press.Recent opinion surveys ahead of Monday's balloting show the party running well ahead of Musharraf supporters. "We...

Pakistan military strikes ceasefire deal with Taliban U.S. Caught Off-GuardPeter Goodspeed,  National Post Desperate for a violence-free election on Feb. 18, the Pakistan military has orchestrated a ceasefire with the very Taliban leader they accused of ordering the assassination of Benazir Bhutto....The latest ceasefire could not come at a more embarrassing time for Washington-- the day the Taliban announced the deal, U.S. officials were publicly praising Pakistan for taking a fiercer stand against Islamist radicals.On Wednesday, Mike McConnell, U.S. director of national intelligence, told a Senate committee on Intelligence, "What's happened is Pakistan has now recognized that this is an existential...

Scotland Yard has concluded that Benazir Bhutto did not die from a gunshot wound, but instead died from the blast of the suicide bomber's explosion immediately afterward. The Bhutto family and her political party have rejected the findings, and they have renewed their calls for a UN investigation: Scotland Yard said in a report released Friday that Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto died as a result of a suicide bomb blast, not a gunshot — findings that support the Pakistani government's version of the events. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party immediately rejected the British conclusion and repeated its demand for a...

Pervez Musharraf has apparently learned little from his tussle with the Taliban. Reports have Pakistan entering into negotiations .... again ... with the Taliban .... again ... for another cease-fire. This time, they have even more bargaining chips, having control of the Swat region: Taliban militants declared a cease-fire Wednesday in fighting with Pakistani forces, and the government said it was preparing for peace talks with al-Qaida-linked extremists in the lawless tribal area near the border with Afghanistan. Any deal that allows armed Islamic extremists to operate on Pakistani soil would run counter to U.S. demands for the government to...